WARREN BUFFET GETS INTO CARBON CAPTURE

What does it mean when investing's biggest name gets attached to a new technology? It means there is Big Money in the new technology. Is Bill next?

PacificCorp to study capture of carbon dioxide in coal plants
Jim Polson and Greg Chang, April 23, 2007 (Bloomberg News via Deseret News)
Buffet in bright red, Gates in Harvard crimson
WHO
PacifiCorp, a utility owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc; The Wyoming Infrastructure Authority/executive director Steve Waddington;

WHAT
The Wyoming Infrastructure Authority will, with competitive bid winner PacificCorp , conduct a joint feasibility study by building a coal-fired power plant designed to utilize Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), a type of carbon capture/sequestration technology.

WHEN
The bids were assessed by January 30 of this year and the contract recently awarded.

WHERE
- The new power plant will be at one of two unnamed sites in Wyoming, possibly at the Jim Bridger station in the southwestern part of the state.
- Another IGCC test facility, using different proprietary technology, is in development in New York state.
click to enlarge pic
WHY
- Both utility think tank Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have declared IGCC theoretically substantial as a means of eliminating CO2 emissions from electricity generation. The technology gasifies coal and burns it to generate electricity while at the same time both utilizing the heat produced for warming and removing and retaining the carbon dioxide for sequestration.
- As is the case everywhere else, the new plant and technology are responses to increased demand for power and the need to provide it without aggravating climate change.

QUOTES
Waddington commenting on costs: "…considerably higher than conventional wisdom…It's not a pretty picture, and we're hoping that we can push those costs down…"